Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jun 2013
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2013 The Plain Dealer
Contact:  http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Mark Gillespie, The Plain Dealer

FAKE DRUG CHECKPOINTS SPOOK DRIVERS

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio - Police are not allowed to use checkpoints to 
search motorists and their vehicles for drugs. So in Mayfield 
Heights, officers are trying the next best thing - fake drug checkpoints.

Police gathered in the express lanes of I-271 on Monday after placing 
signs along the freeway warning motorists that a drug checkpoint lay ahead.

There was no checkpoint, only police waiting for motorists to react 
suspiciously after seeing the signs. A Mayfield Heights assistant 
prosecutor says it's a lawful and legitimate tactic in his city's war on drugs.

"We should be applauded for doing this," Dominic Vitantonio said. 
"It's a good thing."

Civil libertarians and one of the people who was stopped and searched 
are skeptical. They wonder whether officers were profiling motorists 
and if anyone's Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and 
seizures was violated.

Nick Worner, a spokesman for the Cleveland office of the American 
Civil Liberties Union, said his office will examine the circumstances 
surrounding the fake checkpoint.

"We're going to be gathering information," Worner said. "That 
information will determine what we think is going on."

The fake checkpoints are legal, experts say. A 2000 U.S. Supreme 
Court ruling said actual checkpoints are not legal and that police 
can randomly stop cars for just two reasons: to prevent immigrants 
and contraband from entering the country illegally and to get drunken 
drivers off the road.

On Monday, Mayfield Heights police placed a series of signs along 
northbound I-271 express lanes that said: "Drug Checkpoint Ahead," 
"Police K9 Dog In Use" and "Be Prepared to Stop." Officers then 
watched how motorists reacted after seeing the signs.

Vitantonio said there were arrests and drugs seized. He said on 
Thursday that four people were stopped and searched. Three of the 
motorists crossed through the grassy median or at emergency-vehicle 
crossings, evasive actions that gave police reasonable suspicion to 
stop those cars.

The fourth motorist, Bill Peters of Medina, insists he did nothing 
wrong except to park on the side of the freeway to check his phone 
for directions. He was stopped and allowed police to search his car. 
Vitantonio said that if Peters had not given police permission to 
search, they would have had to let him go.

Peters, 53, who has long hair, wonders whether officers targeted him 
because of his appearance.

"The last time I checked, it is not against the law to pull over to 
the side of the road to check directions," said Peters, who added 
that the officer who stopped him commended him for being safety-conscious.

He said the officer quizzed him about what kinds of drugs he had in 
the car, saying it would be much easier to confess before other 
officers and a drug-sniffing dog arrived. Peters insisted he had no 
drugs. As promised, other officers and the dog were summoned.

Ric Simmons, a law professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio 
State University, said police are allowed to deceive people, thus the 
fake checkpoint was legal.

"They can lie to anybody," Simmons said.

Prominent Cleveland civil-rights attorney Terry Gilbert thinks the 
reason police stopped Peters is questionable. Gilbert said police are 
allowed to deceive suspects, but he questioned the practice of lying 
to motorists about a fake drug checkpoint on a busy highway.

"I don't think it accomplishes any public safety goals," Gilbert said.
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